Asimov's SF, February 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Not even Konar. Her lord and master was gone too. How strange to think that Konar was dead, his tattooed body vaporized. He had been such a force of nature, controlling her life and the lives of everyone around her. Konar certainly deserved to die, no doubt about it. Slaving was the only capital offense left in most systems, a distinction that slavers had worked hard to earn, overcoming every human impulse for forgiveness. By the time Deirdre became Konar's property, she had given up hating every slaver she met, instead responding to how they treated her. And Konar had treated her well—up until the end. The worst thing he ever did was to call her up from Hades to die, and that resulted in setting her free.

  “Where are we anyway?” Heather asked, staring at an enhanced view of local space. “This does not look at all like home."

  Jason did not rise to the bait, still baby-strapped to the command couch, giving his sister an intensely dirty look.

  Deirdre studied the screens to get her bearings. Hades was still the closest planet, though shrinking visibly. Hydra was the nearest ship, loudly broadcasting her surrender. Hiryu was hurrying away at high acceleration, pursued by Atalanta, while the two accompanying corvettes, Calais and Zetes, were headed Deirdre's way at flank speed. Any survivors from Konar's flagship rated immediate naval attention. She told Heather, “We are headed outsystem, tailed by two high-g naval corvettes."

  Heather asked, “If we just turned around, would they take us home?"

  “Probably,” Deirdre admitted, “but that would mean reprogramming this lifeboat without proper codes.” Not something she felt up to doing. “Medea” set the program in motion, but did not let Deirdre change direction.

  “We could just shut off the gravity drive,” Heather suggested, “and let them catch up."

  “Maybe.” Deirdre was not so sure. Hess had designed this program, and would surely assume that anyone tampering with his system was better off dead. “But this drive could easily be set to blow if we try to shut it down."

  “We could at least call the Navy,” Heather protested, “and tell them who we are...."

  “Even that might be suicide,” Deirdre pointed out. “We have to trust in the escape program.” And in Commander Hess.

  “What?” Heather could not believe her. “That's crazy.” Looking to her brother for support, Heather only got a disgusted glare, so she turned back to Deirdre, asking, “Why keep faith with these dead pirates?"

  “Because if we do not, they will kill us, too.” That was Hess’ hallmark, the utter willingness to kill whoever became even the least threat, or merely a nuisance. Which made him way worse than Konar—who preferred control and manipulation to outright murder. Konar had been a charismatic megalomaniac, who Deirdre feared and respected. Hess gave her the galloping creeps.

  Heather turned back to her brother, saying, “You tell her. This is so totally silly...."

  Jason replied with a withering look, but did not deign to answer. Which was odd, since the boy normally could not bear an unexpressed thought.

  His sister asked, “What's the matter, still mad we are not at home?"

  “Damn, left him on MUTE.” Deirdre remembered the remote, fished it out and turned the boy's speech center back on.

  “You silly blue-headed imbecile,” Jason yelled at his sister, “I swear we are not related. Hello? Cosmos to Heather. I was muted, remember? That's why I was not answering!"

  “Sorry,” his big sister replied sarcastically. “I thought you were just listening for once, maybe even thinking ahead. Sadly I was wrong."

  “Hallelujah,” her brother rejoiced. “Tits-for-brains is wrong about something...."

  Heather turned back to Deirdre, pleading, “Please, please turn him off."

  While they fought, Deirdre looked about the escape pod, seeing a standard survey ship lifeboat, with increased shielding, expanded powerplant, and added antimatter tanks. No wonder it could hold only a fraction of the survey ship's original crew. Endurance originally had two such lifeboats, each intended to carry all twenty-four crew members—if necessary. Now it was none too roomy for the three of them, with no privacy except in the bath cubicle. Six would have been a stretch.

  Turning back to the screens, she watched the corvettes slowly cut the gap between them. Despite that expanded powerplant, they still had a snail's chance of outrunning a real starship—much less two naval corvettes. Calais and Zetes would easily run down the escape pod before it reached a neighboring system. How could Hess or Konar have hoped to escape? Elvis knows, neither of them was stupid. All Deirdre could do was pray Hess had planned this to perfection, relying on his ruthless sense of self-preservation to work in her favor for once.

  Heather wanted to at least signal their pursuers, accusing her of still being the pirates’ prisoner. “You are so used to doing their bidding that you are obeying their orders, even though they are dead."

  “With damned good reason,” Deirdre retorted. “If you knew them half as well as I do, you would, too.” Besides, Hess was not dead. Commander Hess and the Hiryu had a good head start, and half a chance of getting away—now that the two corvettes that could have caught him were coming after her. And she did not dare call them off. How horribly unfair.

  Which pretty much summed up her life, from the moment slavers entered that public blast-shelter on New Harmony and began killing people. Heather was right, life among slavers had taught Deirdre obedient detachment, and she felt curiously unconcerned by the corvettes closing in on them. Hess had planned for this, and he knew every hiding place and bolt hole in this part of space. Slavers had hideouts the Navy knew nothing about, accessed by secret gates in out of the way worlds. Deirdre had never heard of any such gates in Tartarus system—but Hess might have.

  Hours into their flight, the drive fields suddenly reversed, and they were decelerating toward Cerberus, a three-ringed gas giant in the outer system, with a litter of frozen moons, the largest of which were Styx and Lethe. Heather wanted to know, “What's there?"

  Deirdre shrugged. Knowing Hess, it could be anything: a secret slaver base, or a hidden missile battery set to blast the corvettes. To know for sure she had to think like Hess, which Deirdre hated to do.

  Even Deirdre was disappointed when the capsule ducked behind Cerberus and set down on the frozen surface of Styx, the innermost major satellite. Screens showed a bleak cratered moonscape, half covered by heaps of frozen methane snow. Their pursuers were temporarily hidden by Cerberus, but the two corvettes were certainly decelerating to match orbits.

  Suddenly a new craft burst onto the screens, lifting off the far side of Styx, headed outsystem at maximum acceleration, but keeping the bulk of Cerberus between it and the corvettes. Deirdre immediately recognized the vessel's profile; it was the Endurance's other lifeboat, the exact twin of the craft they were in. This duplicate capsule had been stashed ahead of time on the backside of Styx, and it would now come streaking out from behind Cerberus, just as the corvettes were slowing to match orbits, mimicking the old slaver trick of using a star or gas giant to mask a tight maneuver. Only this time Hess had set up a fast shuffle, sending the corvettes tearing into interstellar space running down the wrong capsule. Yet another coup for the commander of the Hiryu.

  Grasping what would happen, Heather announced, “We must tell the Navy they are after the wrong ship."

  “How?” Deirdre was dead set against reprogramming the controls, or even flipping on the comlink.

  “We could trigger an emergency beacon,” Heather insisted, “then the corvettes could come get us."

  “Maybe.” Emergency beacons were self-contained, with their own power and programming—so it should be perfectly safe. And they could not just sit huddled in the lifeboat while the Navy went rocketing away into the unknown. But it was equally stupid to take chances with a stone cold killer like Hess. “Only if we suit up first, and take a beacon outside."

  “Suit up?” Jason looked surprised, but intrigued.

  “And go outside?” Heather was horrified. �
�It is ghastly cold out there."

  “Then stay safe and snug in here,” Deirdre suggested. “I am not going to break programming while sitting in this capsule."

  “Go outside! Super cool.” Jason started pawing through the suit locker, producing an emergency kit and beacon. Deirdre helped him suit up, and Heather had to do the same, or be left alone in the lifeboat.

  Supercool indeed. Styx was stuck in perpetual winter, with a bleak pitted surface where the only atmosphere was the sort that you could pick up off the ground, then watch as it vaporized in your glove. Deirdre knelt in frozen methane, setting out a beacon with a twenty minute delay, then led her charges through the methane snow to put a low crater ring-wall between them and whatever happened next. Heather dragged her feet, plainly thinking the whole trek was unnecessary, but since the suits had no comlinks, she could not complain.

  Before they even got to the ring-wall, Jason spied a line of crisp bootprints heading off across the methane field. Touching helmets with Deirdre, he demanded, “Who the hell left those?"

  Who indeed? They were on a frigid moon in an uninhabited part of a slaver system deep in the Far Eridani. People did not just stroll past. You had a better chance of seeing a Yeti, or some unknown xeno. Of course there was no telling when the tracks were made. With no atmosphere to speak of, tracks could last a long time before being covered up by methane geysers and outgasing.

  Having no time to dally over new mysteries, Deirdre dragged the children behind the ring-wall, where they waited for the emergency beacon to trigger. She scanned the dark sky for some sign of the corvettes, which should look like small fast satellites. Precisely twenty minutes after setting the beacon, there was an intense flash, melting methane on the far side of the crater. Moments later Deirdre felt the bang in the insulated seat of her suit that was the escape pod blasting itself to bits. Clearly Hess planned for this possibility.

  Without comlinks, Deirdre could not even say, “Told you so.” Standing up, she saw frozen methane slowly falling on a huge melted patch where the lifeboat and beacon had been. Touching helmets with the children, she told them curtly, “Follow me."

  Finding the line of prints, Deirdre followed them away from the falling methane, which is what Hess must have intended. Her sole attempt at deviating from the program had resulted in the complete obliteration of their only transport and shelter, leaving them stranded in vacuum suits on a lifeless world, without supplies or comlinks. If these boot prints did not lead somewhere, they could choose between freezing to death, or drowning in their own body wastes.

  She followed the crisp prints across a field of frozen methane, with the children trudging behind her, turning the line of prints into a trail. Above them, bright young stars burned amid the strange constellations of the Far Eridani. At the end of the methane field, the prints descended into a yawning ice cave at the base of a crater—something clearly artificial and encouraging. Suit-lights came on as they entered the cave, bathing gleaming crystalline walls in dazzling white light. But, after several klicks of shining tunnel, the trail ended in a smooth blank ice wall.

  For once, Deirdre was grateful to have been owned by slavers, otherwise she might have despaired. This blank wall was typical of slaver gates, which opened into walls and floors, making them nearly invisible to the uninitiated. Touching helmets with the children, Deirdre told them to lean against the frozen wall, then she did the same. Gates were controlled by a simple knock code, so Deirdre tried Konar's personal knock, 3-1-1. Instantly the ice wall vanished, and they tumbled into a different world.

  Dark woods surrounded Deirdre, tall scaly tree trunks that disappeared into hot inky night overhead. Without their suit lights, they would have been in total blackness. Picking herself up, Deirdre noted her suit heaters had cut out and cool air had begun to circulate. Her suit claimed outside temperature had risen hundreds of degrees, and that the air was breathable. She doffed her helmet to give it the sniff test. Hot but bearable.

  Heather and Jason dutifully did the same, asking together, “Where are we?"

  “Still on Styx,” she hazarded, “but in a shielded and insulated underground cavity."

  “It looks huge.” Jason sounded dubious. “And what are woods doing klicks underground?"

  “Just 3V,” Deirdre explained. “This is an entrance maze, a safety check, or holding area to keep undesirables from using the gate. Trees give the illusion of space.” They were surrounded by dark hologram woods that seemed to stretch into limitless night, filled with virtual twistings and turnings that would keep them going in circles. Twenty paces into the woods, and she would never find the entrance gate again, much less the exit.

  “So which way should we go?” Heather somehow expected her to know.

  Deirdre honestly did not know what to do next, wishing now she had not blown up the lifeboat trying to contact the Navy. She should have known Hess would not let go so easily.

  “Hello, Deirdre, how truly delightful to see you.” As if summoned up by her thoughts, a cheerful, dapper Commander Hess strolled out of the dark woods, saying, “I dearly hoped you escaped the Fafnir, but I could not be sure."

  Deirdre stood frozen in shock, but Jason acted, reaching into the emergency kit and producing a recoilless pistol, pointing it at the slaver. Hess continued to grin, striding toward them, adding, “And you brought the kids too, bravo."

  “Shoot!” shouted Heather, and Deirdre was jerked alert. Reaching out, she snatched the pistol from Jason.

  “He has to be a holo,” Deirdre told the protesting boy, who dearly wanted to bag his first slaver. Laws of physics did not allow Hess to be in two places at once. When they left the lifeboat, Hess and the Hiryu had been boosting outsystem at an incredible clip, so this had to be a holo.

  To be sure, she aimed the pistol at Hess and pressed the firing stud, sending a volley of steel-jacketed rockets shooting through the slaver's virtual chest and vanishing into the hologram night, trailing points of fire. Hess grimaced. “That was uncalled for."

  “Just proving a point.” Deirdre shrugged. “I knew you must be a holo."

  “Alas, it is true.” Hess stopped in front of her, and did a little bow, clicking virtual heels. “And what man would not rather be in the flesh with you?"

  Gallant as always. This hologram was most likely a 3V guide, set up ahead of the time as part of the escape program. With a negligent wave, Hess indicated a dark path to the left, saying, “If m'lady will but follow me."

  “He's a slaver,” Heather protested.

  “No, he is a holo.” A real slaver would not be nearly so polite.

  “Why trust him?” Jason sneered, still disappointed the pistol had not blown Hess apart.

  So was Deirdre, but her only choice was to follow this hologram Hess. At worst he would lose her in the woods, but that might easily happen without him. Best to pretend cooperation, giving the program no reason to discard her.

  “Give me the gun back,” Jason demanded, trying to be the man of the group.

  “No way.” Deirdre was not giving in to attempts to run things from the bottom. Besides, the King believed that women ought to go armed, and had given Priscilla her first pistol.

  “Great,” Jason scoffed, “guess we can have Heather throw another fit if we have to."

  “How about we throw you?” Heather suggested.

  Deirdre pocketed the gun, threatening them with the remote instead. “Shut up, or I will put you both on MUTE."

  “Children can be a trial.” Hess smirked at her troubles, then led them down a dark crooked path that branched and twisted between low boles and thick protruding roots, while virtual bats twittered overhead, sounding like the souls of the damned. Eventually the hot hologram forest gave way to a grove of black poplars bordering a boiling stream. Which was no hologram effect. Deirdre could not even go near the searing stream without first sealing her suit.

  Hess waded casually into the boiling water, and they were forced to follow, suit refrigerators whining in protes
t as the scalding stream came up to the kids’ waists. So far Deirdre's survey vessel suit had taken her through frozen methane and superheated steam, showing slavers stole the best.

  Beyond the billowing curtain of steam, they broke out into daylight, and the hot hellish woods vanished, replaced by a garden full of fruit trees. Pears, apples, oranges, plums, and tangerines hung from limbs twined with grape and berry vines, all miraculously bearing fruit together, filling the air with sweet scents. Music throbbed in the middle distance, and loud laughter came from the undergrowth.

  Suddenly a naked woman burst from the brush, laughing and running, followed by a nude grinning slaver, covered with dragon tattoos, who was himself pursued by three more bare-naked women. Party time on Styx.

  All five ran straight through the v-suited group, showing the slaver and his naked ladies were holos. More nudists broke cover, and Deirdre realized there was a virtual orgy in progress, with hologram revelers playing sex games, and mating to ethereal music. Jason, for one, was disgusted, demanding to know, “What in hell is going on?"

  “This is Elysium,” Heather declared, giggling at the cross-country orgy.

  Jason took that as a dig. “Dry up, blue bangs."

  “No, it's true,” his sister insisted. “Not our planet but the orchards of Elysium in the underworld. Did you sleep through planet studies? This is what our world is named after."

  Jason looked unconvinced, but Heather was right; someone had created a virtual underworld beneath the frozen surface of Styx. Deirdre recognized slavers she knew wearing Fafnir's blood-red dragon heart tattoo. Holos of dead men were dallying with virtual playmates in a 3V gardenscape. Grotesque even for slavers. She asked Hess, “What is all this?"

  “Konar ordered it,” the hologram answered airily, as if that justified anything, no matter how obscene and absurd. “He felt there should be some permanent record of the men who died under his command—beyond the usual list of aliases and DNA samples. What better way to preserve them than at play? Endlessly enjoying themselves."